Well, these are two pretty similar cars we have here! It's only details that could potentially make the difference. Considering they both belong to the suv segment and utilize the same 5-door suv body style and the 4 x 4 wheel drive system, it all comes up to the specific petrol engine choice they offer. The first one has a Nissan-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 320hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 260hp engine designed by Mazda.

The fact that the Mazda got tested by the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), while the other contender didn't, offers a slight advantage, as the 4-star rating is better than none. Still, apart from the official crash test results there are other things we need to be aware of. Both vehicles belong to the suv segment, which is generally a very good thing safety-wise, but it doesn't do much to help us decide between the two. Furthermore, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, Infiniti EX offers a marginal difference of 4% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that Mazda does have a slight advantage, at least on all of the models level. These are the results of an independent reasearch, while our visitors describe reliability of Infiniti with an average rating of 4.5, and models under the Mazda badge with 4.4 out of 5. The same official information place EX as average reliability-wise, and CX-7 is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as Infiniti EX rank it on average as 5.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.7 out of 5.

Infiniti is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1.8 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 240 kilometers per hour, 29km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be CX-7, averaging around 10.4 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (27 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 8% difference compared to Infiniti EX.

Mazda appears just a bit more reliable, although the difference is truly marginal. The most important thing when deciding between any two vehicles should always be safety, both passive and active. In my opinion, everything taken into account, CX-7 offers much better overall protection, which launches it ahead of the other contender. From there things take a different direction, with Infiniti being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. It does come at a cost though, and that's the fuel consumption... All together, there's not much more to say, in this case I wouldn't even consider anything but Mazda. In any case that's my personal view, built upon all the data available to me. What should decide here though is the way you feel about the two vehicles, and I hope you'll find my guidelines useful in the process. In case you have two minutes to spare I invite you to define your needs, desires and budget and see which car would be chosen by the virtual adviser™, among thousands of similar, yet so different vehicles.